He nodded, absent-minded. That noise from the air vent was back, stronger now. He had to speak with the woman about it.
“Tell me something then.” The girl giggled, her mouth full of teeth. “You haven’t told me anything yet, remember? About you. I want to know about you.”
The pink stung his eyes. “There’s nothing special about me. I needed somewhere to stay, that’s all.”
“But you have to have a name. A family. Something.”
The family question seemed less dangerous. “I’ve got a family. My father is away a lot, but he always brings back treats. My mother loves flowers. Grandma does, too, though she likes anything pretty.”
The girl’s eyes seemed to have grown a size. “I love pretty things too. Don’t you?”
“Yes.” He winced. The air vent whispered around their conversation like a broken echo. “Then there’s Cassie as well. She’s the prettiest girl you’ve ever seen.”
The girl huffed. “Prettier than me?” Then she shrugged, smiling. “It’s nice that you love her so much. You’re a great older brother.”
“Thank you.”
“I don’t have any brothers.” Her smile was gone. The shadows stuck to her face like dirt. “There’s no one who cares for me. There’s no one who can help me get away from her.”
He reached out to pat the back of her hand. It was as cool as glass. “I care. I’ll help you.”
“And then we’ll be together forever,” she said, and the whispers grew until the world was wrapped in pink cotton.
He slept late the next day, missing breakfast. When he came upstairs, the woman was gone, and there was a note to him on the basement door. Gone shopping. Back soon. He didn’t know when she had left or where the nearest grocery store was. He didn’t care. The one thing on his mind was the girl.
The stairs to the second floor whined, every inch of wood slippery as ice. There were three doors upstairs, all closed. He opened the first, the second, the third. She was in the third room. On her back, fully clothed, empty eyes open. Matte hair spilled over the pillow like dead leaves.
“Oh, no.” It pained him to see her like that. He didn’t want to. “How can she do this to you?” He sat down on the bedside, the way she used to do at night. He touched the back of her hand, and it was warm. “I’ll put an end to this,” he said. “I’ll make her pay for what she’s done.”
The girl blinked, but there was no other reaction. Nothing but a girl on a bed in a dark room, her eyes going blink-blink-blink like a sparrow’s heart. He wanted her to smile but she didn’t, so he left her there and closed the door. Went back to his basement whispers, imagining that he filled his notebook with thick black strokes.
When she came to him that night, she was crying. “I don’t want you to see me like that,” she said. “Like how I am when her poison has taken me.” She wiped her cheeks with her sleeves, refusing to look at him. “That’s not who I am.”
“I know.” The whispers prickled his skin but he pushed them back. “You’re a pretty girl. You deserve to be free.”
“Do you really think so?” She sniffled. The sound tugged at a memory somewhere, and he pushed that away too. “But I’m nothing special. Not even my own mother thinks so.”
“Spread your wings,” he said, drawing in the air. White shapes, white strokes all around her. “Angel.”
He was up in time for breakfast the next morning. The woman boiled the eggs, put the kettle on. No talking, because that was how she wanted it. No air vent whispering. Bitterness slipped down his throat, egg yolk painted the inside of his mouth. He cut one slice of bread, two, three. The woman stood by the counter sipping her tea, back turned. She didn’t notice when he rammed the bread knife into her throat. But she made a sound, a gurgling scream that shot into that stinking dark corner of his mind and tugged at his hideaway things. The things no one could know. Her cup crashed into the floor a moment before she did. It was ugly, nothing like that other time. It was sticky tiles and broken china, it was limbs going in the wrong directions. The blood clawed its way toward him but he stepped aside, dropping the knife. No more need for it. He was done.
When he turned to the doorway, the girl was there.
“Angel,” he said, and for the first time since that day when they took him away, he felt calm. He had put things right now. Even without the notebook he was fine. Doctor Stein would never have believed it, but he would never ever meet Doctor Stein again.
The girl made a noise. It wasn’t words, it wasn’t anything like their nighttime conversations. She shook, hands fidgeting while her mouth hung open and all that came from it were those raw, strained sounds. Her eyes stayed glazed over as if she wasn’t there. As if she had never been there.
See now what you’ve done, his mother said. She’s distraught, poor thing.
“Not now, Mother.”
It’s like I’ve always said, Grandma cut in. He can’t be trusted.
“Oh, shut up.”
He closed the door in the girl’s face, that pasty, lifeless face he couldn’t bear to see. The noises wormed themselves through the keyhole, animal noises, noises almost like the ones Cass had made. Cass in her pink cotton pajamas, playing hopscotch by herself out on the street despite the autumn chill. Chalk lines around her. Chalk wings spreading from her body, and sirens howling like wolves in the distance.
Cassie. Angel eyes.
Don’t look at me like
